Thank you so much. I'll look for these texts. The Septuagint and the New Testament will be my daily drivers, and I also look forward to exploring the huge treasure trove of Greek writing. Augustine loses a lot in even the best translation, so I suppose Plato and Aristotle will be more direct in the same way.
Not so long ago Latin and Greek was expected of every educated man. Many problems today can be traced back to breaking communion with the past.
Forgive me for asking a somewhat unrelated question. I'm asking since you've thought deeply about learning Greek. I am a native English speaker, and I learned enough Latin to read the Bible and St. Augustine. Do you have a recommendation in terms of the commonly-available resources for learning New Testament Greek, for a motivated layman who will be learning on nights and weekends?
Great question. I’m not fully across the introductory NT Greek material as I came to it through Classical Greek (in which case I loved what we used: Mastronarde’s textbook). There are many texts around as pretty much every Greek teacher ends up writing their own. One of the recent ones is Merkle and Plummer, which has the advantage of videos to go with it. Rodney Decker has a good introductory text book and, from what I’ve glimpsed of it, it aligns better with my view on several topics. Dana Harris also has a good one. Having Latin under your belt will give you an advantage!
If you keep reading this substack you’ll find that I do have bones to pick with them all… but whichever one you pick, you will still end up learning Greek. Then you can read my forthcoming articles to iron out the crinkles 😉
If it works with timezones, a colleague at my seminary, Sydney Missionary and Bible College, runs an intensive Greek online course, live on Monday evenings (AEST). He’s a great teacher and it’s more fun to learn with humans if you can! 🤩
Thank you so much. I'll look for these texts. The Septuagint and the New Testament will be my daily drivers, and I also look forward to exploring the huge treasure trove of Greek writing. Augustine loses a lot in even the best translation, so I suppose Plato and Aristotle will be more direct in the same way.
Not so long ago Latin and Greek was expected of every educated man. Many problems today can be traced back to breaking communion with the past.
What a cliffhanger
🤣🤣 I’m so thrilled that someone other than me finds it to be so!
Forgive me for asking a somewhat unrelated question. I'm asking since you've thought deeply about learning Greek. I am a native English speaker, and I learned enough Latin to read the Bible and St. Augustine. Do you have a recommendation in terms of the commonly-available resources for learning New Testament Greek, for a motivated layman who will be learning on nights and weekends?
other readers, feel free to weigh in on David’s question above 👆🏻
Great question. I’m not fully across the introductory NT Greek material as I came to it through Classical Greek (in which case I loved what we used: Mastronarde’s textbook). There are many texts around as pretty much every Greek teacher ends up writing their own. One of the recent ones is Merkle and Plummer, which has the advantage of videos to go with it. Rodney Decker has a good introductory text book and, from what I’ve glimpsed of it, it aligns better with my view on several topics. Dana Harris also has a good one. Having Latin under your belt will give you an advantage!
If you keep reading this substack you’ll find that I do have bones to pick with them all… but whichever one you pick, you will still end up learning Greek. Then you can read my forthcoming articles to iron out the crinkles 😉
If it works with timezones, a colleague at my seminary, Sydney Missionary and Bible College, runs an intensive Greek online course, live on Monday evenings (AEST). He’s a great teacher and it’s more fun to learn with humans if you can! 🤩
I look forward to purchasing your text!
Sydney is 10 hours ahead of me :-(